Pull up to the bumper, baby


1. I’m currently experiencing the curious state of being a tourist in the place I live [sidenote: i just typo’d that and wrote “the place I love”]. This isn’t hard in London — or Bath for that matter, plenty of tourists there too — and is underlined by the fact that I’m constantly taking photos with my iPhone. It’s like having a form of photographic tourettes, where I can’t walk past a single shop window or street corner without stopping to pull out my phone and snap a pic.



2. A sweet thought I had this morning: I can’t wait to run Unravelling again in January as I’ll get to make the weekly videos from the new flat! :) I love that the move is bringing a freshness to everything in my life. I want to keep clearing out the old to ease the bringing in of the new…



3. Last Sunday I made the pilgrammage back to Brick Lane. Well, I was intending to go to Spitalfields market but since I’ve been away they’ve built a proper glass roof over it and installed Wagamama and a host of other shops and suddenly it’s not really a market anymore. Which was disappointing. Luckily Brick Lane is close by and boy howdy, my head just about exploded when i turned the corner from Princelet Street. So much colour and life and vibrant awesomeness. I don’t remember it being quite so up-and-coming ten years ago (though the Vibe bar is still there. Spent many Sundays afternoons in there) — i love the feel of the place now. I danced to Grace Jones’ Pull Up To The Bumper in the street. Couldn’t stop smiling.



3. It feels a lot like jetlag, what I’m feeling these days. I’m transitioning into a new routine and my body is slow to catch up with me. Deep sleep is elusive and it’s taken me two weeks to realise the reason i keep waking at an ungodly hour is because that’s when i’ve set the central heating to come on — the hot water in the pipes makes the floorboards creak, waking this light-sleeper up. Remedied that this morning. Small moves, Ellie*



4. The teacher/reporter in me is feeling the urge to take notes and record all I’m feeling and learning about change and transition. I think I might be literally writing a new chapter for a future little something…

5. Thankful for new seasons of The Vampire Diaries, Grimm and True Blood. They’re making my evenings extra cosy.

* Name that film!

Something for the weekend

Loving everything about photographer Debi Treloar’s home

December soul nourishment from Rachel and Hannah

New mantra: it’s either a hell yeah! or a no.

In case you need it: the emergency compliment

(spiked) maple apple cider | the greenest salad | roasted butternut penne with pistachio pesto

Had fun at Holly’s book launch at Anthropologie earlier this week. Lots of inspiration for this house mover in her new book, Decorate Workshop. So fun chatting with Tracey, Micela, Rhiannon and Ingrid, too — hey ladies!

Instagram launches new web profiles for users — here’s mine :)

The magic button (via Sas)

The Talks

3 tips to attract abundance | Danielle’s grooving prosperity

[video] Portrait: a documentary about a popular Instagrammer and a pro photographer

London in bus stops | vintage Covent Garden

“I am exactly where I am supposed to be, which is fine with where I am.” :: wisdom from Colleen

The Frida Kahlo costume is killing me!

Happy weekend, everyone xo

Notes from the first week


As I mentioned in my last post, remaking all your routines is exhausting. Even something as simple as making coffee in the morning requires me to use different parts of my brain — I still try to turn the kitchen taps the wrong way when filling the kettle. It makes me realise how I ran my days in Bath on autopilot. I could throw together lunch with my eyes shut; I knew all the washing machine programmes by heart. And that’s normal, isn’t it. Just as toddlers thrive on routine, we tread the paths through our home until new neural pathways are formed. It’s comforting — essential, even — to helping us feel safe. Because home is where we most want to feel safe.

I do not feel safe yet. Everything is so new, and while having my own furniture around me helps ease the transition, I’m still bumping into things and fretting about locking the door. I still got back from a weekend away on Monday anxious to see if the flat was still standing (read: not broken into).

*breathe*


It takes time to rebuild your nest. I’m definitely a homebird. After the book tour I wondered if perhaps I could be location independent, living out of a suitcase and working wherever I found a decent internet connection. But I now realise I just needed to leave Bath. I needed to grow, and growth required movement and change. Being away for a month helped me cut the ties to my old home and inevitably that’s left me feeling unmoored. But what’s helping is remembering how I’ve been in this situation before — many times — and it’s always gotten better.

This is the 18th time I’ve moved house as an adult, and the third time I’ve done it on my own. Living alone has proved to be the most soul-nourishing thing I have ever done. It’s my hope that in the next couple of years this status will change, but for now I am relishing the opportunity to make my surroundings exactly as I want them.

Navigating such radical change makes me wonder where else I can bring in the new. My Google Reader suddenly feels heavy and repetitive; I’m itching to change the view I see through my laptop window. I want to curl up on my sofa and read for hours. I’m building myself up to attending lectures and workshops to feed my brain offline (can you imagine?)


I’m gently holding the “now what?” feeling that’s bubbling in my stomach. I’m here… I made the jump…. now what? I swing between the excitement of wanting to do EVERYTHING and total and utter inertia.

It doesn’t help that I’ve yet to refind my work rhythm. Emails need to be answered and next year needs to be planned out… but i’m still changing my address with the utility companies and wondering where my electricity meter is. Even writing this post feels clunky somehow, the words sticking in my head.

*breathe*


I’m waiting for the flow to return, basically. The ease of intimately knowing my surroundings. Fluffing the flat is bringing me joy, don’t get me wrong. I’m dreaming of the rug I want to buy myself for Christmas, and the vintage lamps and chairs I hope to find down Portobello Road. I know it’s just the beginning, and that beginnings can be bumpy.

I don’t have a neat ending for this post. I’ve barely scraped the surface of what I’m feeling right now… But I can tell you this: I’m so glad I made the move.

More soon. x

I am a house plant


This is the first time I’ve sat down at this computer, in the chair I usually sit in to write, since I moved house earlier this week. This morning I finally got the broadband working, so I don’t have to rely on my iPhone to connect me to the world (THANK THE GODDESS FOR IPHONES). I’ve been posting photos to Instagram constantly, the act of noticing, recording and sharing grounding me as i float though this strange transitional time.

Moving house is not for wimps, eh?


The move itself went without a hitch, the removals company I used were AMAZING, sending me two guys who were so professional and good humoured it was a delight to work with them (seriously — there are five flights of stairs to the flat in Bath and five flights to this new place. Good humour was needed ;-) Even the guy who rocked up with the hoist (to get furniture through the third floor window) was a sweetheart.


The move took two days, packing and loading the van on day one and driving to London/unloading on day two. My sister was with me on Monday, helping to clean the flat (she is a cleaning ninja) and hold my hand in case I freaked out. I got the train up to Londontown that night, leaving under a full moon — this felt particularly auspicious. There were a few overwhelmed tears on the way to Sas’s place, but she and Ash looked after me in their warm and cosy house. Next day we drove over to my new place and got the keys, taking a few feet shots in the empty flat (obviously) before the boys arrived.


Everything fitted in the flat, thank goodness, though there was a moment when it looked like the sofa wasn’t gonna make it:


We went from this…


To this…



So I am a Londoner once again. I’ve walked past my old house several times already — the first time I found so many feathers in my path it felt like a certain someone was welcoming me home. I had a few concerns about moving back to my old stomping ground, but being somewhere familiar is proving to be a good thing. Enough time has passed — I’m not the same girl who left. In all honesty it feels like my DNA has been changed, i am so remade.


The last few days I’ve been tentatively walking around my new/old neighbourhood, reacquainting myself with the area and figuring out where the doctor’s surgery is (and the nearest Starbucks, of course. There are three. Ridiculous, non?) There’s been a few teething troubles with the flat, but on the whole it’s all good. The light is gorgeous, even on cloudy days. The wooden floors are epic. The space is smaller in some ways (hello tiny bedroom with no radiator) but bigger in others, and I can already feel the potential for expansion that’s coming. I feel like a house plant that’s just been repotted — my roots are ready to push out into the new soil. My leaves want to reach higher.

I’m ready to grow bigger.

But first, I need some sleep. Remaking all your routines is exhausting! And where the hell is the iron/linen basket/spare pillows going to go?